OUR SUSTAINABLE LIFE:

My wife, Jacqui, and I live an increasingly sustainable life with a small carbon footprint in a 3-bedroom 1300 sq. ft. ranch house on a wooded 1/4 acre lot in Warminster, PA with our two cats, Maxine and Rocky. Mindful that I'll be retiring soon, we've been working to get our suburban Bucks County house off the grid.

I first replaced all incandescent lights with compact fluorescent bulbs. We've been improving the insulation and successfully added R-12 to wall insulation on the inside, caulked seams, replaced our large front window with a high R, low e "super window", and heat most of the house with a corn-burning stove. We recently zoned the hot water baseboard heating to bypass the area near the corn stove.

We buy 5 kW of wind energy from the Energy Coop, and use bio-heating oil. We've had a professional energy audit and I'm doing the required projects. We use power strips to eliminate phantom loads. We turn out the unnecessary lights and appliances we're not using. The front door and carport lights are on photoelectric and motion sensors.

We replaced our old-fashioned toilets with low-flow toilets. We flush only when necessary. We take quick showers and save unused shower water in a bucket for extra flushing. I wash our dishes by hand.. We have an efficient washer with a high-speed spin cycle to shorten dryer time.
We catch rainwater in 55 gal drums for the back lawn. We strategically planted indigenous trees as wind breaks on our already wooded lot. We compost, recycle, and live fairly simply. We "meadow mow" part of our organic lawn. We feed the birds, neuter the local stray cats, and eliminate mosquitoes with an electronic device.

My wife drives a Honda Civic hybrid (I drove a 54 mpg Honda Civic VX until it was killed in an accident.) I drive the 4.5 miles to work in a 1995 (34 mpg) Honda Civic sedan.

We're waiting for the local solar grants to open up so we can start work on a small rooftop solar array. We're studying whether should install demand hot water or go to a solar assist system. We're continually becoming more sustainable as time and money permits. Moving forward on the "inside insulation" job is our current priority.